I met the Chicks on The Right last year at The Indiana Historical Society's author fair . . . and I genuinely like the ladies. They are beautiful, strong, smart, and very bold. They are examples of Self-Actualized women.
This post is not to discredit their work, but hopefully to inspire them to use their well-earned media platform to change the cultural conversation. Why not look at ways society and culture can elevate the poor toward the path of Self-Actualization instead?
Why are they trashing Gwyneth Paltrow's tweet highlighting the struggle some of our fellow Americans have just to eat?
Ah yes. Another rich celebrity pretending that they're so in touch with regular Americans. It’s so cute.
I love Paltrow's tweet because it illustrates how $29 in food subsidies (our tax dollars) can be responsibly spent.
I'd rather they talk about nutrition, not slam Paltrow for naming her daughter Apple.
They labeled her a 'food snob'.
As taxpayers, we owe it to our poor in America to all become food snobs sooner than later. I'd argue that good nutrition is the foundation building material of good citizens.
I consider myself a food snob, because I prefer densely nutritious food and believe our tax dollars should be appropriated only for whole foods and that these foods should be made widely available in the inner cities. Fresh healthy foods would show up in abundance in our inner cities, IF that was the only thing SNAP dollars could buy.
If we want to advance all members of society we MUST assist the lower needs on the hierarchy of human Self-Actualization.
Our city's poor have little to no chance of Self-actualization unless their lower needs are met. Let's look at lower needs.
Food, Clothing, Shelter <--threatened
Safety Needs <--threatened
Love/Belonging Needs <--threatened
Because the lower needs of America's poor are not met, they have no chance to move up the hierarchy.
Esteem Needs <--respect for self, respect for others
Self-Actualization <--Maslow said only 2% of the population achieves it.
Food is listed first, before clothing and shelter. What passes for food that our government allows tax dollars to be spent on is criminal because studies conclusively show that healthy developing brains need solid nutritional support. What we're feeding our inner city poor is leading to bigger problems down the road like cancer, diabetes and heart disease. Not to mention a myriad of psychological disorders which stem from malnutrition.
Calories do not equate to nutrition. A diet of junk food leads to malnutrition.
Corporations like the one who manufactures Rockstar Energy drinks spend big bucks to lobby for our EBT dollars to be spent on their poisons. Go after Rockstar, ladies! Go after the chips, sugary snacks and corn syrup-laden beverages we are pumping into our country's poor!
This is where the discussion should be. Paltrow's tweet illustrates a responsible way to spend the assistance on nutritional foods and just how hard that struggle is. I commend her for it.
I wish Chicks on The Right would instead turn the discussion to the ridiculous burdensome things government spends our money on like huge federal bureaucracies and allowances for nutritional supplemental dollars to be spent on junk foods.
Melyssa Hubbard is the author of
Spanking City Hall, the true story of how a professional dominatrix founded the Indiana Tea Party as a non-partisan movement and won America's first national Tea Party prize. She is the founder and organizer of
IndianaTeaParty.com
